Page 148 of Of Iron and Moonlight

“We should be on our way,” he said.

Elara wiped her cheeks with her forearms, adjusted her grip on the hilts, and nodded.

Njall took the first bend out of the cell block and nearly collided with two guards. Both were tall males with silver hair bound in tight warrior’s knots. One had a hawkish face. The other was broader through the shoulders. Their violet eyes shifted between the unconscious human over Njall’s shoulder, Kalaetzu, and Elara skidding to a halt beside them.

“How did you get in here?” the hawk-faced guard growled, hand drifting to his sword.

Cursed goddesses. Njall’s mind raced for a way through.

Elara shot forward, straight at the guards.

“Elara—” Njall barked, too late.

She tossed both hilts into one hand and, with the other, flung a vial at the stone between them. Glass shattered. Smoke erupted upward in a choking plume. The guards coughed and shouted, stumbling back into the haze. Njall clamped a hand over his nose and blinked against the tears burning in his eyes.

Elara wheeled around him, pointing with a blade down the opposite corridor. “There’s another staircase that way!” She bolted, both swords clutched awkwardly in one hand, steel jutting at impossible angles. Njall winced. He would have to teach her how to at least hold them.

They reached the staircase and climbed fast. Elara first, leading the way. Njall close behind with Gavriel’s limp body bouncing against his shoulder. Kalaetzu scrambled after them, clutching his satchel, as the guards burst free of the smoke and began shouting for reinforcements.

At the top, Elara yanked the knife from her boot and drove it into the hinge of the door. She threw her weight into it, forcing the door off its frame just enough to jam. “Keep running!” she called, already turning down the corridor as guards pounded on the wood.

Njall followed just in time to see her round the next corner at full speed and slam straight into a wall of muscle. A hulking Norrelian overseer filled the passage, metal gauntlets gleaming over thick gloves. The impact barely moved him. Elara rebounded as though she had struck stone. Her grip on the swords failed. They clattered across the floor.

His hand shot out and snapped around her wrist.

Bone cracked.

Elara screamed.

The sound drove the air from Njall’s lungs.

The male spun her and dragged her back against his chest. His forearm locked across her throat, lifting her onto her toes. She clawed at him with her uninjured hand, fingers straining for purchase against the crushing grip.

“What have we here?” the overseer called down the corridor, bored amusement edging his voice. “Oorlon’s Champion. A Tsuchitsan stray. And two weaklings.”

Njall looked at Elara’s wide brown eyes, full of fear and pain, her skin paling as the air left her, and panic cut through him. He reached for the knife in his sleeve. He had one clear shot. It likely would not do much, but he could not risk another angle.

“I’d welcome it if you hit the girl,” the overseer taunted. “Less work for me later.”

Njall flicked the knife into the male’s shin.

The overseer grunted but did not loosen his hold. “Waste of a good knife.”

But it seemed to give Elara an idea.

Her hand slipped from the overseer’s forearm. Slowly, between desperate attempts at air, she lowered it to her thigh. In one savage movement she pulled a hidden knife and drove it up into the soft hollow between his legs.

The overseer roared. His grip faltered.

Elara tore free and stumbled away, clutching her broken wrist to her chest. Njall moved at once to put himself between her and the male as Kalaetzu rushed forward, hurling a vial at the overseer’s chest. It struck with a sharp crack. Bright sparks flared over silver armor and flesh. The hulking body staggered, then collapsed in a twitching heap.

They were running again.

Elara snatched Njall’s swords, nearly tripped from the pain, and dropped them. Kalaetzu vaulted the fallen body, grabbed them instead, and motioned for everyone to follow. Njall charged after them, making sure Elara did not fall behind as she staggered forward clumsily.

“That potion was incredible!” she shouted, propelled by pain and adrenaline alone. “You must teach me how to make it!”

“Perhaps,” Njall said, disbelief threading through his voice, “we discuss that when we are not being hunted?”